I don't want a bill that goes off the concept of being extreme, then "compromise" on a "reasonable" bill. Our existing copyright, patent, and other IP laws have worked well for centuries before the DMCA and other rubbish.

What worked for the framers of the Constitution should work for us now. End of story.

While I personally disagree with most of the changes to IP that have happened over the past couple decades, this is a shortsighted view. The constitution is good, but imperfect; we cannot hold it as some holy document, unchanging, the word of our holy fathers who art in heaven, blah blah.

Most people, when they say 'Damnit, we should stop adding to the constitution!' really mean 'Damn, our government is huge and unwieldy, and I think it should be a lot smaller.' They just use 'follow the constitution' as a rallying cry to head toward what they really want (typically tighter fiscal policy and less government intrusion... ie, libertarianism). Please don't be 'most people'. The framers of the Constitution of the United States were unable to appreciate all the changes that progress has brought us, and there will be many changes that existing laws, even ones properly based on a constitutionally sound underpinning, do not handle well.

'Follow the Constition' is not the end of the story; it was the beginning.

For some of us, "follow the US Constitution" means exactly that what it says. It doesn't mean it can't change. It means, "The US Constitution is the supreme law of the land and we cannot in good conscience call ourselves a country of the rule of law if we can't even make token efforts to follow the supreme law of the land."

I firmly believe that the people that worked so hard to craft such an amazing document realized that it was supposed to be a living document. They realized that times were always changing and the Constitution needed to change with it. That's why they proposed and adopted (and used 3 times for a total of 12 amendments during Thomas Jefferson's lifetime) Article V. Using that little tidbit they saw fit to include, we can make whatever changes we want so long as each state has the same number of Senators.

To tout the idea that the framers were unable to appreciate what the world would be like today is to truly underestimate the likes of Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison and their peers. While they may not have seen the likes of personal computers or the Internet or movies, they certainly saw the need to adapt and change. And here's a hint: the tool they envisioned to adapt and change was not the Supreme Court deciding that the meaning and intention of words written more than 200 years ago has somehow changed over time.

While I'm not answering the meat of your post, you started to drift in the "living document" direction near the end.

was not the Supreme Court deciding that the meaning and intention of words written more than 200 years ago has somehow changed over time.

The problem here is that someone has to interpret those words, and the SCOTUS seems to have inherited that duty. Otherwise, who's going to interpret them? The words don't stand on their own; no English writing does. All natural language is open to interpretation, especially as different circumstances arise that this language is supposed to apply to.

The problem here is that someone has to interpret those words, and the SCOTUS seems to have inherited that duty.

Why? The US Constitution is one of the simplest substantial legal documents in the world. There are very few words which might require interpretation, and those are the very words which have been used to drastically increase the power of government. In this case, the copyright clause not specifying a duration but only saying 'a limited time'.

In other cases, the words are very clear, e.g. "shall make no law", and it's taken centuries of lawyering to turn that into "shall make no law except when we feel like

The US Constitution is one of the simplest substantial legal documents in the world. There are very few words

You were doing perfectly right up to there. The Constitution demands interpretation precisely because it's so sparse. Broad principles need to be applied to highly specific circumstances for the law to be of any use. That requires interpretation.

Additionally, it's worth noting that many people who claim they're against interpretation are, when pressed, really just opposed to particular interpretations. We may safely assume you'd interpret the Constitution differently than how the various justices have done so over the last 208 years, but interpretation is inescapable.

Additionally, the more precisely and lengthy a legal document, the more it is wedded to the specific, precise, circumstances it was written to address. That will leave a lot less room for interpretation, but will require much, much, more frequent revisions of the letter of the law.

That would be back when the rifle was not yet widely available. It's clearly ridiculous to let people keep their own nuclear weapons and long-range bombers ready to fly now - weapons have advanced, and one person can weild far greater destructive power than was the case at the time. A line must be drawn, but it isn't clear where.

And here's a hint: the tool they envisioned to adapt and change was not the Supreme Court deciding that the meaning and intention of words written more than 200 years ago has somehow changed over time.

200 years? More like 16 years. Thomas Jefferson, the person whom you appear to hold in such high regard (by your mention of him twice in your post) disagreed with the result of the very first case of judicial review. He thought the Supreme Court was already interpreting the words of the Constitution incorrectly.

At that point, while most all of the framers of the Constitution were still alive, they could have chosen to create and pass an amendment to stop the Supreme Court from continuing to decide the meaning and intention of words written 16 years prior. They didn't. So while no one expected the Supreme Court to take on the job it did, no one (not even those founders you idolize) tried to stop them.

These "Bills" do not amend/modify the constitution, they circumvent it.

Amending the constitution is fine, but there is right way to do it (constitutional convention,voting, state ratification, etc...), and there is the wrong way (adding legislation by re-defining common terms and trying to work around it because you know there is no way you can successfully modify it when you don't have the votes or issuing executive orders).

The 9th Amendment was implemented precisely because they could not anticipate the future.

"The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

Rights exist even if not anticipated or enumerated by the original document. You can state that you have the right not to be scanned by a telepath, even if we don't have telepathy. Rights are not privileges, and you should not have to beg for them.

Well, in California, they did pass a State Constitutional Amendment to say Marriage is between one man, and one woman, but that wasn't good enough for those wanting Marriage between two people, as being between one man and one woman is "too arbitrary". Well, hell, I think marriage limit between two people is "arbitrary", I'd love marriage to include men, women and all sorts of furry (an non-furry) farm animals in any quantity. Hell, even farm animals might be too arbitrary.

Well, in California, they did pass a State Constitutional Amendment to say Marriage is between one man, and one woman

Up until 1998 South Carolina's state Constitution had an equivalent clause prohibiting interracial marriage. Hell, even in 1998 38% of the state's voters voted to keep it in place. Bigotry dies slowly, fighting tooth and nail all the way.

The point is, it doesn't matter what California's or South Carolina's Constitution said on the subject. They were both null and void under the US Constitution.

Under Article IV, Section 1 of the United States Constitution, EVERY STATE is required to give full faith and credit to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state. And that includes marriages. It doesn't matter if your state has a two year waiting period to obtain a marriage license, you can fly to Nevada and get a quickie marriage in a cheezy Vegas chapel. Every state is required under the US constitution to give full faith and credit to that marriage. It doesn't matter if your state prohibits interracial marriages or gay marriages. You can fly to Iowa and have an interracial gay marriage, and it doesn't matter if one state constitution attempts to ban the marriage for being interracial and another state's constitution attempts to ban the marriage for being gay.

And regardless of the Full Faith and Credit clause of the constitution, any law or state constitutional ban on gay marriages or interracial marriages is null and void anyway under the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution. The law cannot examine the RACE of marriage applicants as a basis for discriminating between acceptable and unacceptable marriage applications. The law cannot examine the RELIGION of marriage applicants as a basis to discriminate between acceptable and unacceptable marriage applications. The law cannot examine the GENDER of marriage applicants as a basis to discriminate between acceptable and unacceptable marriage applications.

Any prohibition against gay marriages is null and void for the exact same reason any prohibition on interracial marriages is null and void, and the exact same reason any ban on mixed-religion marriages would be null and void.

The only way to stop gay marriages (or interracial marriages), would be with an amendment to the US Constitution.

Anywho, the battles will linger one but the war is already over. General public opinion on the issue is already split almost dead even, and it's increasing twice as fast as approval increased for interracial marriage. And most significantly, there is an overwhelming generational split. Exactly as happened with interracial marriage, opposition is concentrated among the older generation and particularly the senior citizens. Exactly as with interracial marriage, the younger half of the population is overwhelmingly accepting, viewing it as an issue of civil-rights vs bigotry.

The fact is, the war is over. The gay marriage opponents just don't know it yet. There is just plain no way to stand against a generational shift. Each and every day the younger generations just plain bury more and more of the senior generation, and their bigotry gets buried with them.

If you don't want to marry a black/white/asian/latino/homosexual/lesbian/christian/muslim/hindu/atheist/blond/brunette/redhead or whatever else, then fine. Don't marry anyone you don't want to marry. But it's no skin off your nose if some other consenting adult couple choose to get married. Live and let live.

"Marriage, in common law, is the merging of two legal entities into two halves of a single legal entity."

This is historically wrong. Marriage has always been between men and women. I don't know a single culture that included homosexual "unions" as a norm. Additionally, there is more historical evidence for polygamy than anything resembling homosexual unions. Common law marriage was between a man and woman.

Further, the purposes of marriage laws were to protect FAMILY (mom, dad, kids) and the wife's widowhood

I lived on several Polynesian islands and homosexuals there were totally unremarked upon. The gay men (I didn't meet any lesbians, as society there is pretty heavily stratified with men spending time with men, and I'm a man) had basically equal status with the other men, and no one seemed to care if you were screwing men or women at night. They also didn't have a formal marriage system like the Catholic priests who were on one island wanted, and in fact the priests finally got a whole bunch of couples to ge

I'm aware of Polynesian customs, including the value they placed on women. So much so, that if a family had all boys, One culture had it so the youngest would be turned into a "girl", and it ended up being "honored", interestingly enough, that "girl" was not an object of sexual desires nor necessarily a homosexual. However, if it was the case that he was "gay", it would indicate that homosexuality is more "cultural" than something one was born to be, something homosexuals have been fighting against their wh

This is historically wrong. Marriage has always been between men and women.

I was leaving the bigotry out and just focusing on what it is, not which groups were allowed to participate. There's no "difference" between a man marrying a man and a woman, and when I was doing my vows, most vows were gender neutral such that the wording for all but the last 3 words would have worked great for two men or two women. Who it has always been between and who was explicitly excluded from marrying someone else is completely missing my point. Your specifics seem to indicate you got it, and re

Sort of. DOMA had substantial support from both parties by the numbers, so it wouldn't matter who controled what at the time: It'd have passed either way. It was authored by a Republican though.(Bob Barr, R-Georgia).

I'm amused by the justification. It's authority comes from the aforementioned 'full faith and credit' clause, which reads:

"Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescri

Our existing copyright, patent, and other IP laws have worked well for centuries before the DMCA and other rubbish.

What worked for the framers of the Constitution should work for us now. End of story.

To be fair, there's been a fundamental change in information technology of a sort never before seen in all of history since then.

The old laws aren't good enough anymore. Copyright, in particular, is in need of a serious overhaul.

What the authors of SOPA don't get, though, is that no law can make things go back to the way they were, unless that law breaks all the computers. New laws will have to accept the inarguable truth that, for many mediums, copies aren't worth anything anymore, that some other measure of worth is needed in order to encourage creative business models.

The old laws aren't good enough anymore. Copyright, in particular, is in need of a serious overhaul.

Wrong. The old laws were much better than the new laws, when it comes to copyright. We need to dump all the new copyright laws, and go back to the copyright laws we had back in 1800, where works were only protected for 17 years before passing into the public domain. This infinite copyright term we have now is BS and totally flies in the face of why copyright exists in the first place (it's supposed to be a

What he means is that things have changed such that rulings from 1800 are not *necessarily* good for today. The fact that the rulings of 1700 ARE better than what we have today is not so much because the Statute of Anne was perfect as much as because the Mickey Mouse Protection Act is insane.

To wit, authors of 1709 were turning a profit on books with only 14 years of protection. This at a time when few people could read, distribution was expensive, printing was expensive and "piracy" (in the form of book sharing) was running rampant.

And enforcement only implicated regulating publishing companies.

Nowadays companies claim to need 120 years of protection, at a time when consumption is widespread, copying and international distribution is practically free and even more convenient than asking a friend to lend you a copy.

Granted, P2P file sharing is more disruptive than book lending, but enforcement against that requires to essentially attach a police man to every device, watching anything that the citizens do, with all the implications to civil liberties that such implicates.

1800 laws certainly aren't good for these days, it's just that today's laws are even worse.

I disagree that P2P is more disruptive than book lending, but that is a personal belief I don't have any data to back that, and won't argue

I'll argue.

A copy of a book has access restriction built in -- if I have it, you do not, and if I give it to you, I do not have it -- and therefore it has inherent value. Ten copies of a book is worth ten times as much as one copy (assuming anyone else wants them).

A digital copy of a file CAN NOT have access restriction built in -- at least not if you want the posessor to be able to read it -- and therefore it has no inherent value. Ten copies of a.PDF file are worth exactly the same as one copy, or a bil

The old laws were much better than the new laws, when it comes to copyright. We need to dump all the new copyright laws, and go back to the copyright laws we had back in 1800, where works were only protected for 17 years before passing into the public domain.

Most copyrighted works make most of their profits within the first few years after release.

Most infringing copies are also made within the first few years after a work's release.

I agree that the endless copyright term extensions are crazy, and that in a few cases for works that have truly stood the test of time they cause real problems, but the whole copyright term extension argument is mostly a red herring.

How's it a red herring. The previous poster said "the old laws aren't good enough anymore"; I was just pointing out that the real "old laws" (i.e. the copyright laws that this country started out with a little over 2 centuries ago) seem good enough to me, it's all the new laws (i.e. laws passed in the 20th Century) that suck. And I was slightly mistaken about the copyright term, it was 14 years, not 17. Which is even better AFAIC.

Personally, if I was dictator for a day, here's how I'd revamp the copyrigh

Because for practical purposes, the old laws and the new laws are little different in that respect. If almost everything of interest to either side happens in, say, the first five years, then it doesn't really matter whether the copyright term technically extends to 14 years or 140. And if you look at profits for rightsholders or the stuff that's being swapped illegally on-line, it's pretty clear that most of the interesting stuff does happen within a short space of time for the kinds of works that are big

One of the reasons that piracy is so rampant is that the social agreement regarding copyrighted works entering the public domain has been broken. Therefore people no longer feel the need to respect it.

I'm afraid I find that argument to be part of the whole red herring I described before. If people were copying stuff that was released 20 years ago and should probably have entered the public domain by now, that would be a strong argument. However, most people are copying the latest hit single, a leaked preview of the next big Hollywood blockbuster, or the new version of Office/Photoshop/$AAA_GAME, exactly none of which would be out of copyright for several years even under any historical system. That, also

Without the DMCA, there'd be no need for the safe harbor provisions. So yes, I *do* want it abolished (as well as abolishing the idea that "contrbutory" infringement exists, and statutory damages). Let them sue everyone for everything, and make them prove in open court what their actual damages are.

The beginnings of the current crisis predates the DMCA by about - ohhhh - 30 years, I'd say. Things started going out of kilter when the copyright laws started to be extended. And, let's blame Walt Disney and his company for much of that. In fact, I'll go further back, and say that things started to become unbalanced around 1950.

Since you point to the DMCA specifically, I would say that things started to accelerate downhill around the time that Microsoft stated that "This software is licensed, not sold." Without googling, it seems that at one point in time, one could actually "buy" a copy of MS Windows. Then with the next update to Windows, you could no longer "buy" it, you could only rent it, so long as you agreed to that stupid EULA, and understood that Microsoft owns everything on your PC - if not the physical PC itself.

I don't want a bill that goes off the concept of being extreme, then "compromise" on a "reasonable" bill.

I'm willing to compromise, but here's my starting position:

Title 17 of the United States Code is hereby repealed. All rights and privileges formerly granted under this code are null and void. The United States hereby withdraws from the Berne Convention, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, and the World Intellectual Property Organization. Any currently living executive or lawyer who is now or ever has worked for the RIAA or the MPAA or their foreign counterparts is declared outlaw, and the United States will pay a $50,000 bounty for their capture dead or alive.

Then, I hope that you've been writing to the White House, as well as the house and senate. I have been, for years now. Both George Bush and Barack Obama have heard from me, repeatedly on the subject of internet freedom. All of my representatives, as well as a number of representatives that aren't my own.

This, and all similar acts, treaties, regulations, or whatever name it might go by, need to be shot down. I'm steaming over ACTA - a piece of shit born in secrecy, and jammed up all our orifices, despite any and all objections.

Someone sits around tabulating all the stuff sent to the politicians. That someone makes a report periodically, informing Congress Critter Muckraker that all of 17 people have written this week, protesting ACTA. Or, maybe he reports once a month, or maybe even once a day.

I'll bet if Congress was debating the removal of 'American Idol' from the airwaves, they would get about 30 million letters, and 60 million phone calls, along with 120 million emails within 24

I have met scores of Music Business majors at my university. That's a four year bachelors degree which will run you around 50k. Thats a huge investment to make in an "outmoded business model".

Now I completely agree with your point, but it is important to keep in mind how powerful the lobbying of an entire industry on the verge of losing their careers can be. It's analogous to the entire health insurance industry drying up if a public option were introduced (And as we saw, it was defeated). So I guess what I'm saying is that if we don't have the robust safety nets in place to handle whole industries becoming obsolete, then we are going to constantly be fighting a bitter fight in congress as they each try to legislate themselves back into business. It's completely predictable, and frankly, understandable human behavior.

Musicians have had careers for long, long, long before recorded music was invented: it's called "playing live". In fact, that's how a lot of musicians these days still make most of their money, because the profits from their studio records go straight to the record company, so the only way they make any real money is by touring. The business model for musicians hasn't changed that much since the Middle Ages.

It's true, and I try to catch the artists I like (that still tour) whenever they come around. But I'm not talking about musicians, I'm taking about Music Business majors. They don't perform. Their entire career path depends on fitting in somewhere between the artist and the listener. And there are a lot more of them than you would imagine.

Yes but that won't happen quietly. The OWS movement is a perfect example of people who, according to the free market, should be cleaning toilets. But they don't see it that way. Likewise, the music business is becoming just as obsolete, except that they don't resist by camping out downtown, they resist by pushing legislation like SOPA and its' new alternative hard to the point of passing. This is dangerous, and requires us to have more than a indifferent attitude towards their plight.

Laws are keeping the price of artificial property artificially high. Every other industry has their prices set by what the market will bear. The artificial property industry gets to set their prices wherever they want and have their non-sales bolstered by lawsuits and extortion.

You shouldn't have to send a counter notice, ever. That's one of the things that's so awful about the DMCA and related ilk. Takedown provisions circumvent due process in the eagerness to harass anyone accused of circumventing copyright. They are routinely abused to harass the innocent. They can be kept too busy defending themselves from accusation spam to do anything else like provide services to customers.

I've been in this situation before. I made a parody video. One that fit the terms of fair use perfectly. Non-commercial, not possible to mistake for anything official. It used 48 seconds of a 25-minute episode (a clip, set to very inapproprate music drawing attention to some campy visuals). Clearly parody. I put it on youtube, and some time later the copyright holder sent in the DMCA notice to have it pulled.

Now, I *could* file a counterclaim. But if I do that, then I invite them to sue me. That would be a Japanese company suing a British citizen under American law - the legal fees would take all my savings before they could even decide where to hear the case. If it did go to court, the amount of time I'd have to take off to attend would likely cost me my job as well. I'd be ruined, and that's if I *win*. The law favors the rich, and I am not rich.

Particually annoying, someone else has uploaded the entire episode in question to Youtube, and others have used far more material than I did to make AMVs, none of which have been taken down. I believe I actually offended someone at Shopro by insulting the studio's work, so I wouldn't put it past them to sue out of pure spite given half a chance. It's also the second strike on youtube - one more and they close down my account and pull all my videos, most of which are just demonstrations of video filters I programmed. And I can't easily open another account, as it's tied into the google ID now.

Series: Pokemon. One of the mystery dungeon specials.Company: Shopro. I believe the studio that produced it.

At the end of the episode the two main protagonists fly to their destiny on a ship that leaves a rainbow wake. The clip I made was that brief scene, with an audio change: At the moment the ship takes off on it's rainbow-powered drive, the music switches to 'It's OK to be Gay.' It's funnier than it sounds, as the music is a perfect fit for the extreme campyness of the visuals.

Yeah. That's a lot of effort to have to go through just because they send take down notices around seemingly at random. How about we just make it more difficult for them, the ones who are trying to inconvenience others, to take down the videos? It seems too easy right now (website operators are taking things down without question in fear of being sued if they don't), and there's too much of a chance for false alarms. That's what I think needs fixing.

I was generally of the position a few minutes ago that it's generally a bad idea to have the government step into the middle of what *should* be a private-to-private issue ("rights holder" vs "infringer"). However, in thinking about it I think there's actually a chance for the government to solve the problem that is the DMCA. Because the courts are all over the map in how the deal with these things, a DMCA takedown letter is basically a completely free shotgun approach that can be taken by an aggressive "rights holder", and as such they have things radically tilted their direction because it's not feasible or safe to fight bogus claims. However, if a single agency (with strong court oversight of course, assuming that's written in to OPEN somewhere but not looking forward to reading legistlatese that's comparable to patentese) has a set of rules they follow, and the shotgun approach used with the DMCA is forcibly redirected through it, there's a chance to reign in the probably millions of DMCA letters sent down to the 1000's that are legitimate. There's a (TBD) fee associated with filing a complaint, which should discourage the shogtun approach compared to DMCA takedowns, not sure if there are strong enough sanctions for filing invalid claims to deal with the RIAA and such who have deep enough pockets to shotgun entire lawsuits.

Anything coming out of Darrell Issa I just don't trust. His business career [wikipedia.org] was criminal, and his political career has been even worse [wikipedia.org].

But these congressmembers don't usually know anything about what's in legislation they support or oppose except what lobbyists tell them. Wyden usually seems to know what he's talking about. I don't know what's in it for Issa, but Republicans are so lockstep that getting one like Issa to support it is necessary if it's going to go anywhere in Congress. Especially when so many Democratic congressmembers are never going to protect actual rights to free speech/press when Hollywood's against it.

So, your assertion of being "criminal" is a vague allegation of arson, and no suspect for that allegation named? Do you hold the Democrats to the same standards of contempt for their criminality? I doubt it.

I read the Wikipedia article. It wasn't specific allegation that Issa committed the Arson, just that it was Arson. And I'm not saying Issa is innocent, I don't know if he is or isn't. However I was asking about the "criminal" label being applied to someone not convicted of a crime. Do you consider Obama a criminal for the scam known as Solyndra? Or Senators profiting via IPOs while passing (or blocking) legislation that would affect their HUGE profits they made on those IPOs? Or Lying

Propose something terrible that'll never go through.
If it succeeds LOL.
If it fails, then propose something not quite as bad to try to get people to say "well, it's not as bad as what they proposed earlier.."
Rinse and repeat until you get what you want - eventually you'll sneak one past the people fighting against it.

It's not quite "bait and switch"; That's replacing an inferior product for what was originally advertised. E.g. you spot an advert for $10 carpet shampoo, the guy comes around, and hard-sells a $150 "extra super quality" service instead.

This is classic negotiation tactics; Ask for something outlandish, and go towards the middle-ground from there. "If you want a puppy, ask for a horse." The problem is that we're really, really shit at negotiating the other way.

I'm not terribly worried... the internet has always been somewhat just beyond the reach of the law. IMHO the only thing laws like this will do is increase the technical sophistication with which the internet can function beyond the reach of the law. If it gets more people to set up encryption / anonymization services / distributed mesh networks / decentralized DNS / etc. to circumvent attempts at enforcement, then it will be a better internet for the effort.

People have always wanted to get rich for the minimum amount of work. Having a piece of paper that says every else has to pay them money for doing something completely arbitrary is the easiest way these days, especially when you can also convince everyone else to pay for enforcement. With digital distribution, these days are behind us, and are only going to get further behind us as we get into various forms of widget replicator machines.

Bravo for putting up a good fight for sitting back and collecting royalties on an empire of past contributions, with no promise of future contribution or worse yet stifling the contribution of others. Now bow out as the curtains close on that act.

I agree, the Internet is designed to perceive infringement laws as damage and will simply route around it (and develop any technological sophistication required, along the way). It matters not, that this is done by human actors and isn't completely autonomous, but the Internet is our first crack at building non-biological organisms- it may not be perfect but I have faith in the creators.:)

For that, you need help from the pirates. They've had a lot of experience at getting large amounts of data distributed on a budget of zero. That's why they invented P2P file sharing, and then improved it through several generations.

Typical use of doublespeak. The first version of the proposed legislation was so abominable that the Business Software Alliance couldn't even get behind it, so now they're re-introducing the law with a name that will be harder for people to oppose. If this version doesn't go through, expect another version of the same legislation under the guise of going after kiddie porn. You politicians are so damn predictable.

if the Internet site has a practice of expeditiously removing, or disabling access to, material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity after notification by the owner of the copyright or trademark alleged to be infringed or its authorized representative;

This still says that a claim is as good as a conviction in terms of requiring the removal of information, and that failure to comply with such claims is enough to cut off the air supply of the company.

We just had a story posted earlier today [slashdot.org] of a company that was closed down for an entire year without having done anything wrong except being falsely accused. We cannot simply shut down any company that the copyright cabal says we should, especially when they have proven time and again that their dragnets have a total disregard for accuracy.

Sorry Mr. Wyden, I love your work in general, but this is still far outside the realm of due process. I know; failing to support this may mean SOPA gets passed instead -- but the "less wrong" swindle has been pulled on us by these guys too many times for me to buy it anymore. I'm not going to support a law that proposes to shut down slightly fewer innocent businesses.